May 9, I presented on behalf of the IMPACT Project at the tGov Workshop on FP7 Policy-modelling projects. The meeting was held at Brunel University, London, United Kingdom.

The workshop program is:

Workshop on FP7 Policy-modelling projects

The slides of my talk (allotted 15 minutes) are here:

IMPACT_ePoliGovNet_London2012.pdf Download this file

There was a positive reaction to the presentation.

Broadly speaking, the projects have a range of common interests in argument reconstruction, visualisation, consultation, and modelling.  Some of the projects had been running for some time (IMPACT and OCOPOMO) so had specifics to report, while others were just starting (MOSIPS, NOMAD).  Given the time, few projects presented more than architectural designs.  In addition to presentations, there was small group discussion and a panel.  The panel both presented the summaries of the discussions and the views from representatives of local government, political science, and industry.  Apparently, there will be a report to the EU commission as input to future calls on policy-making.  It was good to see some familiar people (Maria Wimmer, Tina Balke) and meet new colleagues.  Brunel Business School (Vishanth Weerakkody) does an excellent job promoting the field.

Cheers,

Adam Wyner

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The Argument Reconstruction Tool is one of the components of the IMPACT toolkit designed to support users in reconstructing arguments from online or offline resources. This tool enables users to do this by annotating natural language texts. The resulting argument model will be used as input for the Argument Visualisation Tool (AVT)  and Structured Consultation Tool (SCT), also part of the IMPACT toolbox and described in this blog. We will shortly describe the main functions of the ART below.

Document management

Source texts can be gathered from different channels, such as online fora, blogs and reactions to EU green papers by stakeholders. The original document format can be anything (HTML files, PDF's, Word files, etc.). The texts in those documents must be copy-pasted by the user into the ART, after which all texts are stored locally as plain text. For online resources, the user can enter the URL of the original text. This web resource will also be loaded and stored by the ART for later reference. One never knows when an online resource will change or disappear and because of that we retain local copies of both the plain text version and the original document format (if a URL is specified). This way the user is able to see where the reconstructed arguments come from at any time in the future, and the process of argument extraction remains transparent and controllable.

Documents can be changed until they are annotated. Once an annotation is linked to a text, this version of the text can not be changed, because the annotation might lose it's context in the original text that way. However, a new version of the document can be made, which can again be annotated independently of the previous version. This way, every stage of development of the discussion can be viewed and no information is lost.

Example of the document management system. On the left a clickable list of documents and on the right the currently selected document in edit mode.

Argument reconstruction

Once a document is made, a user can select a piece of text in the document that contains an argument or a part of an argument and use the selected pieces to fill in argumentation schemes. The ART supports several argumentation schemes, for example on based on the argument from credible source scheme. This scheme consists of a statement, a source and a domain. The statement should fall within the domain, the statement is made by the source, and the source is a credible source within the domain. For example, in the sentence "Newton, an expert in physics, says all things fall down". The statement would be "all things fall down", Newton is the source, Newton is expert in physics, and physics is the domain in which the statement falls.

When a user recognizes a use of this scheme in a source text, (s)he can select a piece of this text (e.g. the source) and indicate what the function of this piece of text is. The selected text is copied to an annotation text field, along with the position of the selection in the source document. This piece of text can be freely adapted to make is suitable for further processing, while the exact position in the source document is stored, and the original text snippet can always be retrieved.

A big challenge in doing this is making a 'canonical' or 'normalized' form of every argument, so that similar or equal arguments can be recognized easily (both by humans and computers). We want to prepare a guideline for annotators that helps them achieve this. We believe the current annotation approach, where the original text is fully maintained while having the flexibility to alter the text freely, is suitable for doing this.

Arguments being reconstructed: by clicking the “Paste” button, the selected text of the document on the right is copied into the appropriate argument scheme slot, accompanied by it’s document ID and starting and ending point for later retrieval. The text in the fields on the left can be edited freely.

Automated support

Our research has shown that automatic recognition of argumentative statements (versus non-argumentative statements) cannot be done with an acceptable level of precision yet. It would be even more complicated to automatically recognise actual argumentation schemes and determine where the different parts of those schemes can be found.

Argument reconstruction is an essential component in the IMPACT toolbox. The task to construct such arguments however, remains a highly specialized and labour intensive task. We intend to support this task by creating a clustering mechanism for arguments that are about the same topic, so a human expert can compare and relate them in a useful way. We aim to use natural language processing techniques for supporting such clustering mechanism thus improving the ease of use of the IMPACT toolbox.

Your input

We are interested to hear your thoughts about a couple of things that have to do with the ART, so we end this text with a number of questions. You can put your answers in a comment to this Posterous post.

1. Do you see any copyright issues arising from the use of the ART? If so, what measures could be taken to overcome these issues?

2. Do you think the ART (in combination with the other tools of the IMPACT toolbox) can be a useful contribution to European democracy? Do you have objections or worries? If so, what specific aspects of the system worries you and what can be done about that?

3. Do you see any ethical issues arising from the usage of the ART? If so, please give a balanced description of them.

4. Is there anything specific you would like to see in our next post?

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This is a brief introduction to the policy modeling tool of the IMPACT argumentation toolbox. It uses computational models of policies, applying methods from Artificial Intelligence and Law and Computational Models of Argument, to help users to analyze and understand the legal effects of alternative policies in particular fact situations or cases. It helps users to “get arguments into the system” in an indirect way. By helping users to better understand the proposed policies, they are better able to contribute informed arguments to the policy debate. The tool is an interactive web application that works much like a rule-based expert system or “wizard”. Users engage in a simple kind of dialogue with the system, using menus and forms.

For example, in the comments to the EU Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy, a policy was proposed for how to deal with so-called “orphaned” works, i.e. works with unknown copyright owners. In order for the policy modeling tool to be useful, the proposed policy has to be relatively concrete, consisting of one or more rules for regulating the issue in specific cases. More abstract policies, for example proposing to further harmonize EU copyright law, cannot be evaluated using the methods provided by the tool. Luckily, the proposed policy for handling orphaned works is sufficiently concrete to be worth modeling.

A policy analyst (“Bernd Gröninger” in the IMPACT scenario) constructs the policy model by representing the policies as rules using a very high-level logic programming language, similar to the Prolog language. He begins by first defining a formal language for relations (“predicates”) and terms (“constants” and “functions”) of the policy, including templates for translating formulas in this language into natural language statements and questions. Multiple templates can be defined, for translating the formulas into several natural languages. Using this formal language, the analyst then represents the proposed policies by defining rules. Currently this is done using a text editor for programming languages. In the future we can imagine a more user-friendly development environment for this purpose, but such an environment is beyond the scope of the IMPACT project. The rules of the model can be organized into a hierarchy of sections. Each section and each rule can be annotated with meta-data, including a description of the policy in natural language and hyperlinks to source documents or arguments in the argument map, among other information. The policy modeling tool will provide a way view and browse these policy models on the web, in a way which makes it easy to follow the links from the rules in the model to related arguments and source texts.

Next, the analyst can use the policy modeling tool to publish these models on the web, to make them available to members of the general public (citizens and other stakeholders). The user interface of the IMPACT toolbox will provide an entry point, by listing the issues for which policy models are available. Clicking on one of these issues will open the model in the policy modeling tool. Here there will be menu commands for browsing the policy model and for simulating and evaluating the effects of policies in particular cases. To continue with our example, suppose a member of the public wants to see how the proposed policies for handling orphaned effects would work in some case. Clicking on the button for starting the simulation tool begins a dialogue with the user to enter the facts of his or her test case. This is done by completing a series of forms, much like an online survey or questionaire. Care is taken to inform the user to not enter any personal information but only fictional names and facts about hypothetical cases. Questions are asked by the system in a goal-directed way, using the rules of the policies, to assure that only relevant questions are asked. When sufficient facts have been gathered, the system displays a textual representation of the arguments constructed when applying the rules of all the (alternative) policy proposals for the selected issue, in this example regarding orphaned works. This is a kind of outline showing relationships and dependencies between the facts of the case, the rules of the various policies, and the legal conclusions that can be drawn from these policies. A list of the policies applied is also displayed. The user can select a policy in this list to have its effects highlighted in the display. This is done by appyling a computational model of argument to compute the legal conclusions that would follow in this case if the selected policy would be adopted an enacted as law. Morever, the final version of the policy modeling tool will be able to find policies with the legal effects desired by the user in the test case, using a form of logical “abduction”.

The cases entered by the user will be able to be saved back to a database on the server and published on the Web, to make them available to other participants in the policy debate.

After having analyzed the effects of the proposed policies, the user should be in a better position to make an informed contribution to the policy debate, for example by posting an argument on his web log or by responding to surveys conducted using the Structured Consultation tool of the IMPACT system. In his articles about the policy issue, the user can include links to any cases he constructed and published using the policy modeling tool. Clicking on such a link would launch the policy modeling with this case displayed. The facts of the case can then be modified, in order to explore the effects of the policies on similar cases, without having to enter all the facts from scratch.

In a later post, we will provide some information about the design and implementation of the policy modeling tool, including some screen shots.

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As announced last week, the IMPACT project will organise a workshop in Berlin to discuss practical implications of online consultations and to explore the use of the IMPACT tools for argument analysis and visualisation together with practitioners. Please find detailed information about the event below.

We cordially invite all members of the Policy Argumentation Network to participate in the workshop! Please note that the workshop is intended to be held in German language.

Kind regards,
Steffen Albrecht

Date:     8 February 2012
Time:    1:30pm – 5:30pm
Venue:  NRW Landesvertretung Berlin, Hiroshimastr. 12,10785 Berlin

Outline Agenda:

• The workshop presents up-to-date procedures and technologies to support policy-making processes with a focus on online consultations and computer-supported policy argumentation.
• Participants test and evaluate tools for argumentation analysis currently under development in the EU-project “IMPACT” and discuss their application in policy-making.
• The workshop offers opportunities to share experiences about the practice of policy-making and available support.

Who should attend?

• Policy-makers, policy analysts and members of public administration who are involved in policy-making and/or consultation initiatives, also from business and civil society organisations.
• There is no registration fee, but please register informally by sending e-mail to Steffen Albrecht (albrecht@zebralog.de) before 4 February 2012.
• Following the workshop, participants have the opportunity to attend the evening debate at the MEDIENFORUM.BERLIN on „Open Data, Open Government - Neue Regeln, neue (Medien-) Politik?“, held also at the Landesvertretung NRW.

Further information:

• Workshop invitation in German
  

  WorkshopIMPACTBerlin_de.pdf Download this file
• Workshop invitation in English
  

  WorkshopIMPACTBerlin_en.pdf Download this file

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The IMPACT partners would like to draw your attention on two workshops on online citizen engagement. Both aim to link research and practice and present the latest developments in the project to practitioners in government and policy analysis. We invite all members of the PA network to participate in these events and to get a more vivid and detailed impression of the tools developed in the project than is possible here on this online platform.

At both events, your feedback on our work is welcome and highly appreciated.

1st event: Sheffield, 27th January 2012

2nd event: Berlin, 8th February 2012

Detailed information: (see below for information on the Berlin event)

1st event: Sheffield, 27th January 2012

FP7 eGovernance and Policy Modeling projects: How to make the cutting edge R&D accessible for real use, in a shorter period of time.

Date: 27th January 2012

Time: 10am - 4pm

Venue: Showroom Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX.  The venue is a 2 minute walk from the railway station in the city centre.

Where helpful, we will use examples which will focus on sustainability/environmental policy for this event, but the tools presented are clearly widely adaptable.

Aims:

• To close the gap between the availability of cutting edge R & D in eGovernance and Policy Modelling and its take-up in local and central government. It will bring the new governance projects and those about to exploit their results into a collaborative environment.

• To link the projects currently creating the best practice of the future with initiatives seeking to share current best practice, thus assisting with “exploitation” of the new initiatives.

• To briefly assess how these initiatives may be of global benefit by examining how China may be encouraged to take a short cut to sustainable development and looking at joint approaches to China.

Attendees:

Those involved in the EU Framework Programme initiatives, those charged with spreading best practice and the policy makers and practitioners who would value advance knowledge of what will be available for them to use in the coming years.

Outline Agenda:

1. Introduction and background to the event.
   Baudouin de Sonis, Chief Executive of EU e-Forum, Brussels.

2. Presentations of what some current EU FP7 projects in the field of eGovernance and Policy Modelling are doing.  These will include:

   The IMPACT Project – new tools using copyright laws as an exemplar
   Professor Ann Macintosh, Professor of Digital Governance, Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Citizenship (The University of Leeds)
   www.policy-impact.eu

   The CATCH Project–new tools in a carbon-reduction context
   Dr Steve Cassidy, MRCMH, Edinburgh
   www.carbonaware.eu

   The FUPOL project- new tools in a sustainable development context
   South Yorkshire – EASY Connects
   www.fupol.eu

   Plus, other projects to confirm.

3. Policy making and the real world.  Presentations of two new Interreg IVC projects with South Yorkshire partners covering sharing of current best practice in environmental policy making, set in a wider vision for Sheffield.

   “Slicker Cities: Doing the right thing”
   Edward Murphy, Technical Director, Mott MacDonald
   Policies required to enable Sheffield to become an exemplar in tackling climate change.

   RE-GREEN Project, in context of Sheffield sustainable development policy.
   Adrian Hacket, Building for Future, Sheffield

   RENERGY Project
   Ian Bloomfield, Durham County Council

4. What Next?

   Presentation of event to take place in China in July to share best practice in governance and establish strong future collaborations.
   Dr Shaun Topham, President EU e-Forum and EU-China e-Forum

   Discussion covering opportunities for realising any synergies emerging between the various initiatives represented or for new initiatives.
   Dr Bridgette Wessels, ICOSS, University of Sheffield

Further information to follow as the programme takes shape and further suggestions are welcome. Please circulate this to anyone you think may be interested.

There is no registration fee. To reserve a place - please email: Dominic Tyerman. Let him have any dietary requests if needed.

2nd event: Berlin, 8th February 2012

Procedures and Tools to Support the Policy Making Process - Verfahren und Technologien zur Unterstützung des Gesetzgebungsprozesses

Date: 8th February 2012

Time: 13:30 - 17:30

Venue: tbd (Berlin-Tiergarten)

Attendees:

Decision makers and policy analysts from politics or public administration on all levels of government, from industry and civil society as well as e-participation practitioners.

Announcement:

Please save the date for this workshop to be held in Berlin, with hands-on experience of the IMPACT prototype tools.

The workshop is held in German language. Workshop participants might also be interested in two events that are locally and thematically, though not organisationally, related: The MEDIENFORUM Berlin on „Open Data, Open Government - Neue Regeln, neue (Medien-) Politik?“ (evening of 8th February) and the conference on "Bürgerschaftliche Mitverantwortung bei Planungs- und Entscheidungsprozessen" (7th February).

Further information on this event will follow soon in the next week.

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Introduction

In the previous, first post of this series of posts on the Structured Consultation Tool (SCT), we outlined the motivation for the SCT. In this second post, we discuss argumentation and a particular form of argument that is central to policy-making, Practical Reasoning (reasoning about what to do), along with some elements of the formal representation.  The objective is to introduce participants in the User Consultation Board to elements of argumentation that are particularly relevant to the project.  The topic could be discussed at much greater length, but in the post we present the high points.  In the final post of this series, we will provide some indicative screen shots of a SCT prototype to give a sense of how users will work with the proposed tool.

In policy-making, arguments are central since, given the deliberative context of the consultation, contributors respond to some point of the proposed legislation either by arguing for or against that point, or providing alternatives (which may or may not be construed as incompatible). The arguments may take a range of forms such as giving reasons against a point, giving a definition, adding a premise, identifying anomalies, giving a counter-example, or stating conditions under which the rule is inapplicable, among others. While contributors are aware that they are deliberating, they do not usually systematically address issues raised by other contributors, much less formalise the arguments as might a logician so as to enable further reasoning over the responses. By the same token, without some formalisation, further automated processing for reasoning is infeasible. The latter is rather important given the sheer amount and complexity of information users can submit. As most contributors are not trained logicians or computer scientists, they cannot be expected to provide systematic, formal, machine-readable arguments. Given this, we must attempt to bridge the gap between the deliberative inputs that the respondents provide and the systematic, formal representations that can be used for further automated processing such as for reasoning. To this end, the IMPACT Project and the SCT use a formal theory of argumentation using Argumentation Schemes.

In the following, we give an overview about arguments and argumentation schemes using familiar examples to give a flavour of the main ideas. We initially outline familiar notions of deductive and defeasible arguments. We then introduce Argumentation Schemes (AS), which are accessible, prototypical, defeasible reasoning patterns. As we point out, ASs are useful for they provide fine-grained information about what users of the SCT agree with or disagree with about the policy under discussion; this is in marked contrast to ePetitions, which are all-or-nothing, or to other policy tools that do not structure the arguments, but leave this to manual analysis after the data has been gathered.

Arguments

To clarify some of the main issues that are being addressed in the SCT and the IMPACT Project, let us first briefly review some foundational issues in logic. Our general point here is that where we can translate reasoning in natural language into a formal representation, we can then take the further step of reasoning with that formal representation quickly, systematically, and transparently over large volumes of information, which might otherwise be beyond any one individual's reasoning ability. In effect, we have proposed that what has been done for arguments in standard logic can (and should) also be done for important arguments in policy formulation. However, there are several points to make along the way.

First, let's review what an argument is in logic. Arguments generally are understood as inference patterns - premises and rules from which we infer a claim. In Classical Propositional Logic, sentences as wholes are considered as the basic component: the sentence Jill is happy can be represented as the proposition P, where we do not consider the structure of the sentence or its parts. Similarly, suppose Bill is happy is Q, and the rule If Jill is happy, then Bill is happy is P -> Q. We have reasoning patterns with premises, a rule, and a conclusion, for example, the inference pattern that logicians call Modus Ponens:

(1)

Premise: Jill is happy

Rule: If Jill is happy, then Bill is happy

Claim: Bill is happy.

We formalise this, maintaining the reasoning pattern. Formalisations may be taken, for our purposes, as templates that need particular values to be assigned to the variables (slots in the template structure).

(2)

Premise: P

Rule: P -> Q

Claim: Q

The reason for the symbolic form is that it allows us to see reasoning at a level of forms, patterns of reasoning, rather than strictly in terms of the particular content of sentences.  Any pair of sentences can be substituted in for P and Q in (2). Moreover, we have programming languages in which we can express such symbolic forms and reason with them. This is an example of a deductive argument, in that where the premises are true and given the rule, the claim must follow; no additional statements can change this inference.

Note that in the IMPACT Project, no one other than the system developers need be aware of the formal level of representation; our point is only to show and justify this in the scope of the project. In particular, end users of the survey (as we see in the next post) only see natural language expressions. However, as they are associated internally with a formal representation, we can further process them.

In Classical Predicate Logic, matters are more complex since we do represent some aspects of the particular structure of sentences, yet we find similar reasoning, deductive patterns:

(3)

Premise: Socrates is a man.

Rule: All men are mortal.

Claim: Socrates is mortal.

We can translate the elements of the sentence into formal expressions of the logical language: verbs (is mortal, is a man) - predicates (mortal', man'), nouns (Socrates) - arguments (socrates'), and quantifiers (Some, All) - quantifiers (Forall).

(4)

Premise: man'(socrates')

Rule: Forall x [man'(x) -> mortal'(x)]

Claim: mortal'(socrates')

This reasoning pattern can be abstracted to a general form.  Where P and Q are any predicates in the logical language, and we instantiate x for any individual, we have the argument:

(5)

Premise: P(x)

Rule: Forall x [P(x) -> Q(x)]

Claim: Q(x)

We know that we can translate from these reasoning patterns expressed in natural language into symbolic reasoning patterns that a machine can reason with. However, there is a problem that is highly relevant to policy formulation. In particular, policy formulation contains arguments that can be defeated by further information, meaning what we had inferred we can no longer infer.

For example, suppose that in (1), we find out that Jill is poor; while logically it would still follow that Bill is happy, we as reasoners might not accept this inference, say where Bill is a bit of a snob. Moreover, debates may have conflicting or contradictory information: though one person might assert all the statements in (3), someone else might counter that Socrates is not a man, but a woman, in which case it does not stictly follow from the rule that Socrates is mortal. Furthermore, some reasoning patterns resemble (5), but do not license the same inference:

(6)

Premise: Jill is a woman.

Rule: Most women are happy.

Claim: Jill is happy.

While we might presume that on balance the claim follows from the premise and rule, it is easy to imagine a situation where Jill isn't happy; she happens to be an exception to the generalisation.  Logicians call the pattern in (6) Defeasible Modus Ponens.  In this pattern, the presumptive claim can defeated by a counter-example.   Finally, in a deductive logic, if we have even one contradiction, anything at all can be inferred, so reasoning is rendered useless. We need other ways of representing reasoning to address these sorts of problems.

Argumentation Schemes

So far, we have only considered deductive arguments, those arguments where from given premises and rule, the claim must follow. We have seen that there are arguments that are not deductive, which are referred to as presumptive or defeasible arguments; that is, we have arguments from which we presume we can infer the claims unless and until we receive information that suggests otherwise. Given that in the real world there are very few rules that have no exceptions, most reasoning in most contexts is presumptive reasoning; in policy formulation, this is very likely to be so. In addition to this general class of arguments, we are also interested in more particular forms of arguments, especially those that can be used to represent arguments about policy. Such particular forms are called Argumentation Schemes, which are patterns of reasoning that permit claims to be drawn defeasibly.  Such schemes are associated with conditions characteristic of the scheme, which are normally true, but if false will lead us to withdraw the presumptive claim.

As we said at the onset, Argumentation Schemes in policy formulation are very useful for they provide clear, fixed, and fine-grained discussion points that users of the SCT may specifically agree or disagree upon. In this way, the SCT returns very specific information to the policy analysts about exactly what respondents object to. Unlike the all-or-nothing approach of ePetitions, users of the SCT can agree with some portions and disagree with others.

Here, we consider two schemes, Practical Reasoning and Expert Opinion. Practical Reasoning relates to determining what people should do in a given situation, which is often central to policy-making consultations; Expert Opinion is what is often used to back up or support particular premises of an argument. We outline each of these schemes in terms of two levels levels of representation, as they appear in natural language and as they appear as a template; the natural language version standing as an instantion of the schema.

The following is an example derived from an ePetition on fox hunting in the United Kingdom. We only represent the premises, leaving the rule implicit. Where the premises are true, the claim presumptively follows (as indicated by using should).

(7)

Premise 1a: The ban on fox hunting negatively affects the livelihoods of those who make a living from fox hunting;

Premise 2a: Repealing the ban on fox hunting creates more jobs in the countryside;

Premise 3a: Creating more jobs in the countryside promotes prosperity.

Claim: We should repeal the ban on fox hunting.

We may make a schema for Practical Reasoning, where we have variables that need to be assigned values. For instance, suppose that R = The ban on fox hunting...., A = Repealing the ban on fox hunting, G = creates more jobs in the countryside, and V = prosperity.

(8)

Premise 1a: The current circumstances are R;

Premise 2a: Doing action A realises goal G;

Premise 3a: The goal G promotes value V;

Claim: We should do action A.

As in the move between (1) and (2), we have created a formal representation that can then be implemented in a program and automatically reasoned with (more accurately, further formalisation is required than given, but this is not relevant to our purposes).

The Expert Opinion argumentation scheme may be used to argue for or against a particular statement of another scheme, which we give as a template and then as an instantiated example.

(9)

Premise 1b: E is an expert in subject domain S

Premise 2b: S contains proposition A;

Premise 3b: E asserts that it is true that A;

Claim: A

We connect our argumentation schemes -- the claim of this Expert Opinion argument is Premise 1a of the previous Practical Reasoning argument. Other premises of the Practical Reasoning argument might also find support from an expert. For illustration, we use made up individuals and domain knowledge.

(10)

Premise 1b: Professor James is an expert on UK rural economic research.

Premise 2b: UK rural economics research contains the proposition that the ban on fox hunting negatively affects the livelihoods of those who make a living from fox hunting.

Premise 3b: Professor James asserts that it is true that the ban on fox hunting negatively affects the livelihoods of those who make a living from fox hunting.

Claim: The ban on fox hunting negatively affects the livelihoods of those who make a living from fox hunting.

Given these arguments, one might be persuaded to repeal the ban on fox hunting.

Alternatively, one might object to particular statements within the arguments, thereby denying that the presumptive claim -- that the ban on fox hunting should be repealed -- follows.  Such objections relate to the conditions under which the scheme can properly be used; they are often presented as questions which, if answered negatively, represent objections to a statement in an argument. Objections stand as attacks on arguments such that if the objection stands, then the argument is defeated; that is, the claim that was presumptively implied no longer holds.

For instance, one might object to Premise 1b of (10), claiming that Professor James is not an expert on UK rural economic research; one might then support this claim by showing that he has not been a member of any professional research organisation for 10 years and has no qualification. Or, one might object to Premise 3a, citing research that jobs which are created in the countryside are so low paying that they are only marginally better than government support, and thereby do not promote prosperity. Note in particular, that the argumentation schemes provide clear, fixed, and fine-grained discussion points, such as those concerning current circumstances, actions, goals, values, expertise, domains, and so on; objections are directed at these points specifically. It is this aspect of argumentation that structures and makes coherent the debate about policy. In this way, it returns very specific information to the policy analyst about exactly what respondents object to.

There is an additional layer to the overall processing of the arguments, where we evaluate a large network of arguments and the statements for or against particular statements. However, as the SCT in the IMPACT Project does not carry out such evaluations, we leave this aside for the time being.

In this post, we outlined the SCT's conceptual technology - connected and analysed Argumentation Schemes. In the next post, we present an overview of a prototype of the SCT.

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Introduction

The IMPACT Project contributes to the policy formulation stage of the policy modelling cycle; it is that stage where the objectives of future laws and regulations are discussed by the general public and stakeholders who have an interest in the policy. For instance, in the project, we consider comments to the Green Paper Copyright in the Knowledge Economy. By and large, each comment presents just one point of view, according to the respondent's agenda; however, taken together, the comments present a range of arguments for or against particular policy proposals. In this sense, comments from the policy formulation stage can be represented as an argument amongst the respondents about what should be done to address the issues under discussion.

The Structured Online Consultation tool (SCT) is a component tool in the IMPACT Project that is used to construct and present detailed online surveys that solicit feedback from participants concerning issues of public policy.  The SCT addresses key problems in policy formulation such as:

• How do we form cohesive representations of policy discussions from divergent comments? 
• How can users register agreement or disagreement with particular parts of the debate?
• How can analysts automatically process the information from the survey?

To address these questions, the SCT is underpinned by a computational model of argumentation, incorporating fine-grained, interconnected argumentation schemes that capture typical patterns of argumentative reasoning. While the public responds to easy to understand questions through the tool's interface, the answers are associated with the computational model and so the SCT supports automated reasoning about arguments.

We present a series of posts about the SCT.  In this first post, we briefly outline the motivation for the SCT. In the second post, we discuss argumentation and a particular scheme that is central to policy-making, Practical Reasoning (reasoning about what to do), along with some elements of the formal representation. In the final post, we provide some indicative screen shots to give a sense of how users will work with the proposed tool.

Motivation

There are several current policy-making support tools in the European Union and the United States which use currently available wiki, comment, email, or social networking technologies:

• The United Kingdom's Cabinet Office Public Reading (temporarily disabled) uses a website that unfolds the proposed bill, allowing online readers to look at specific sections and to use a threaded comment facility to respond to a particular portion of the bill or previous comments.
• The UK Prime Minister's Office ePetition, the European Commission The European Citizens' Initiative, and the US government's White House Petitions allow citizens to electronically create, sign, and submit petitions. The tools, which enable respondents to submit petitions, are web-based versions of what is has been traditionally accomplished manually.
• The US General Services Administration is creating a 'crowdsourced' network of expertise ExpertNet Consultation.
• The RegulationRoom is an academically hosted facility for commenting on proposed legislation, providing guidelines for effective comments.

Broadly, such tools attempt to leverage current technologies to draw in greater citizen participation to policy-making by making participation easier and improving the informativeness of feedback. However, some of the drawbacks of these tools are:

• It is difficult to get an overview understanding of the whole policy, the bearing of comments to portions of the policy, or the relationships among the comments themselves.
• Further analysis is done ''manually'' by analysts, making the contribution of the responses to the development of the policy opaque.
• Responses can be unstructured and unsystematic, introducing inappropriate, irrelevant, or unspecific responses.
• Underlying motivations and justifications such as social values can be obscured.
• Where respondents are signatory to a petition, it is unclear just what is being endorsed for they may agree or disagree with only part of the petition (or some combination).
• The comments are not represented in an analytic form and do not support automated processing, which is essential for handling large volumes of data.

Addressing or avoiding these limitations would greatly increase the effectiveness of contributions from the public and positively impact on policy making.

In the IMPACT project, various tools address different problems. The SCT provides structured arguments about policy to users on the web in natural language such that users register agreement or disagreement with specific portions of the argument. Yet, associated with the natural language expressions, there are formal counterparts, thus enabling automated processing. Furthermore, the arguments are analysed in terms of relevant elements that may otherwise remain implicit such as social values, actions, and circumstances.

In the next post in this series on the SCT, we discuss argumentation and a particular scheme that is central to policy-making, Practical Reasoning, along with some elements of the formal representation.

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Recently we have finished a conference mapping for a scientific conference on sustainable consumption.

"Conference mapping" is a format that we have developed as a commercial service in order to support our platform FuerundWider.org. The conference "Sustainable Consumption: Towards Action and Impact" took place in November in Hamburg. More than 100 presentations were held.

You'll find a report leading through the map and the map itself at
http://workspace3.debattenprofis.de/suco11_conferencemap.pdf

I am posting this message on the impact list because both the report and the map show which requirements an argument map intended for scientific policy advice will have to meet in the end. The basic challenge seems to me that even though we arranged the 'content' of the conference in a series of argument maps (which are constructed in a such a way that they follow two storylines that we had identified in advance), the reader of these maps still has to invest a great amount of interpretation work in order to make sense of the maps. Part of the work is necessary because the maps just mentions and links research projects: you still have to read the papers or at least the abstracts. Also, the projects gives an impression about the amount and the kind of work that goes into collection and structuring of the relevant information.

With the help of the maps, I tried to formulate an argument stressing the relevance of individual consumption behavior for the achievement of sustainabilty goals. <If this had been a closed list, I would post the not yet published version of the (German) text in order to demonstrate the difference between the map and interpretative reading.>

I'd be happy to receive any comments an how the map/the report is done and how do you think it can help both the sustainability-research community and the research management to plan further steps and projects.

Best regards,
Ralf
Dr. Ralf Grötker
______________________________________
SCHNITTSTELLE: Making sense of science

groetker@jb-schnittstelle.de
www.jb-schnittstelle.de

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Dear All

In our previous post we introduced the Argument Visualisation and Tracking tool (AVT) and gave an overview of its main design concepts. In this post we take a closer look at one scenario of using the AVT.
The rationale for the AVT is grounded firstly in current e-participation research priorities, chief among them the need for technology that improves public participation in a range of democratic processes. Thus, ultimately, the aim of the AVT is to improve the efficiency, inclusiveness, openness, and accountability of democratic processes. This means that, in addition to developing the AVT tool and exploring how best to improve the readability of very large visualisations of arguments, we will investigate the mediating role that such large, Web-based debate maps can play in e-participation scenarios. In particular, we intend to investigate the method and practice of how relevant e-participation actors use the AVT tool in the policy-making process.
Here, we will focus on an e-participation scenario from the perspective of a Policy Analyst, who for the purpose of discussion we call Bernd Gröninger. We ask that you consider yourself to be Bernd, where you are responsible for running a consultation on a green paper. You have to facilitate the debate, make sense of the responses, make these responses generally available so that relevant stakeholders can understand how the debate is progressing and at the end of the process you need to report back to the relevant government agency on the responses received.
(To ensure authenticity, the consultation concerns an actual Green Paper consultation, “Copyright in the EU Knowledge Economy” published by the European Commission. The IMPACT project is using this consultation as legacy data to trial the whole IMPACT toolbox. Due to various resource restrictions we are using a selected set of questions in the Green Paper and selected set of responses.)
Currently we do not have a fully functional prototype IMPACT toolbox and AVT tool that can be used to demonstrate all of our design choices. To overcome this difficulty and also to ensure we are progressing in the right direction, we have put together a detailed description of how we expect you the policy analyst to use the tool.

Configuring the debate

Bernd Gröninger logs into the IMPACT toolbox and clicks on the AVT tool icon to configure the tool for this particular consultation.

• He creates a new “Debate Map” in the AVT called “Copyright in the EU Knowledge Economy”.
• He enters the specific Green paper issues into the system. Importantly, these then frame the subsequent debate, bounding what counts as a relevant response from stakeholders. 
• He creates a Group called “Copyright in EU Knowledge Economy debate contributors” and then creates accounts on behalf of each contributor to the debate (e.g. “Aston University [created by Bernd Gröninger]” and “BBC [created by Bernd Gröninger]”).

(Bernd then uses the IMPACT Argument Reconstruction Tool to help him extract the arguments from each contribution to the policy consultation and these are automatically available for the AVT.)

Publishing the debate map

Bernd then publishes the argument maps in the AVT so that the stakeholders are able to browse the debate complete with the contributions made so far during the consultation process. Below is the first Treemap showing the different sections of the Green Paper. The size of the rectangle indicates the aggregated arguments under each section. Indeed, Bernd can check on how the consultation is progressing by going to the main debate window in the AVT to see the density of arguments for each section of the green paper.

Clicking on a rectangle shows another Treemap of the specific questions asked under that section. Clicking on specific questions then shows a network diagram of all the arguments addressing that particular question.

Reporting on the consultation

The deadline for the consultation is reached and Bernd needs to write a report, the AVT tool will help him with this task by providing summary statistics of the responses to the Green Paper issues made by different stakeholders. Statistics might include identification of which where the most controversial and hotly contested issues in the debate.

We welcome any feedback as it relates to the steps outlined in the above scenario from the policy analyst’s perspective.

Regards
Ann

Ann Macintosh
Professor of Digital Governance
Co-Director Centre for Digital Citizenship
Institute of Communications Studies
The University of Leeds,
Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/staff/a.macintosh

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Dear All

Neil and I would welcome your comments on this, our first posting about the AVT tool.

This post provides an overview of the tool. Later this week we will send a second post which will describe how a Policy Analyst might use the tool.

There are pictures in this email so you may have to adjust your html setting in your email account in order to see them.

The Argument Visualisation and Tracking tool (AVT) is the IMPACT tool being developed at the Centre for Digital Citizenship, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds. The AVT supports the work of relevant actors by enabling them to navigate through arguments contained in relevant consultation and policy documents. Specifically, the AVT displays arguments about policies as browsable debate maps. Users can browse these debate maps about public policies and follow links from the visual summaries of the arguments back to the original policy documents. Thus, the AVT is designed to help users make sense of the range of publicly expressed opinions about public policies. Indeed, it is part of the class of tools often referred to as "sense-making" tools.

To achieve this goal, the AVT is being based on the state-of-the art methods and tools in the field of computer-supported argument visualisation (CSAV). With this end in mind, the AVT is powered by the Cohere argument visualisation tool developed at the Open University  (Buckingham Shum, 2008).

One of the major challenges we face in using argument visualisation tools is their current poor usability when displaying large-scale argument maps.  In order to address this challenge we are basing the AVT tool around two main concepts. The first concerns document-centricity. The main IMPACT usage scenario involves an organization publishing a policy-consultation document in order to solicit feedback from relevant stakeholders.  Thus, the argument maps generated by the AVT are anchored in this policy-consultation document, and all arguments generated by stakeholders are entered into the argument maps with links to the original policy-consultation document. In this way all visualized data in the AVT tool will have a connection to the original consultation document.  This document-centricity is important since the policy-consultation document is central to our underlying objectives of achieving transparency and understanding in the argument map.  Furthermore, this document-centricity promotes sense-making for users joining at any time during a lengthy consultation period as they can see how their arguments fit within the ongoing policy-deliberation process consultation.  Finally, this document-centricity gives confidence to the policy-makers that the contributions provided by stakeholders are on-topic and relevant.

The second concept concerns visualising the potentially large amounts of information contributed during a consultation. In order to allow users to get an overview of the vast amount of information and to be able to appreciate which issues are causing the largest debate we are adapting a special kind of visualization called the “treemap”, which has been pioneered by Ben Shneiderman (Shneiderman, 1992) in the field of Information Visualization.  Adapting this technique, we will create “issue maps” which will use colour-coded rectangular blocks to depict issues within the debate. The different sizes of the rectangles indicate the comparative number of arguments associated with each issue. In this way, one of the first screens/views of a consultation a user will get will be a treemap of the questions asked within the Green Paper – with size of the each rectangle dependent on the responses at that time to the question.

Clicking on a rectangle takes the user to the arguments addressing that issue, where the arguments are displayed using the more conventional argument visualization technique of argument-network diagramming.

We welcome any feedback as it relates to these two concepts of “document-centricity” and “issue-mapping”.

Any comments or questions?

References

Buckingham Shum, S. (2008). Cohere: Towards Web 2.0 Argumentation. 2nd International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA '08) (pp. 97–108). IOS Press.

Shneiderman, B. (1992). Tree visualization with tree-maps: 2-d space-filling approach. ACM Transactions on Graphics , 11 (1), 92-99.

Regards

Ann

Ann Macintosh

Professor of Digital Governance,

Co-Director Centre for Digital Citizenship,

Institute of Communications Studies,

University of Leeds

Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

Email: A.Macintosh@leeds.ac.uk  

Web: http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/staff/a.macintosh   

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In the last weeks this community has focused on general and introductory contributions on computer-supported policy argumentation. I hope that you found these interesting, and that you gained an idea of the questions raised in the field and the solutions discussed. As a final contribution to this introductory phase, below you can find a (non-comprehensive) list of weblogs that regularly discuss issues related to computer-supported argumentation.

Starting next week, we will move on in our agenda and present the work currently done in the IMPACT project. As you remember, the project is about developing tools to support the use of arguments in policy analysis and policy debates. These comprise four tools integrated in an argumentation toolbox. We are going to present each of the tools together with a scenario depicting its usage, and we would like to get comments from you and to discuss with you the possible impact of the tools.

We'll start with the "argument analysis, tracking and visualisation tool", developed under the responsibility of the Centre for Digital Citizenship at the University of Leeds.

For now, you might consider one of the following weblogs worth a click (non-comprehensive, work in progress, and in alphabetical order):

• ARG:dundee
  news / blog by the Argumentation Research Group of the University of Dundee
• Argumentation Technology
  weblog by Thomas F. Gordon, IMPACT coordinator, on computer-supported argumentation and e-participation / e-government
• Language Logic Law Software
  weblog by Adam Wyner, IMPACT collaborator, on just that: language, logic, law, and software development

• Legal Informatics Blog
  weblog on legal information systems and legal communication, including e-government
• PEP-NET
  weblog and network of people and organisations active in the field of e-participation throughout Europe (the Pan European eParticipation Network)
• Tim van Gelder's blog
  on argumentation, decision making and deliberative thinking

Any comments or additions are welcome!

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Basically there have been three strains of research on computer-supported argumentation.  The first and perhaps oldest is work on visualizing arguments and relationships between arguments in various kinds of diagrams, called argument maps.  An early example is the gIBIS system, by Jeff Conklin, which was a diagramming tool for Horst Rittel's "issue-based information system" (IBIS) conceptual model of argument. The IBIS model is a conceptually very simple, semi-formal model of argument, consisting of only three elements (issues, positions and arguments) linked together into graphs. The IBIS model is still quite popular, indeed the de facto standard, for "sense-making" applications of argument mapping tools aiming to help groups of people to better understand arguments.  A modern example of such a tool is Compendium.  For a good overview of the topic of argument visualization, see (Kirschner, et. al, 2003).

The second strain of computer-supported argumentation research aims to develop groupware, typically for the World-Wide Web, which helps people to deliberate more effectively.  These systems typically are some kind of discussion forum, with special support for argumentation. Systems of this kind include Zeno (Gordon & Richter, 2002) and Cohere (Buckinghum-Shum, 2008).  These kinds of computer-supported argumentation systems have often been used to support e-participation, e-democracy and policy deliberation application scenarios (Macintosh, Gordon & Renton, 2009).

Finally, the third strain of research is on the topic of more formal computational models of argument.  This research is part of the field of Artificial Intelligence and has a strong grounding in formal logic.  Computational models of argument aim to provide a formal account of such questions as what it means for an argument to be acceptable, given a set of conflicting arguments, as well as argumentation dialogues, modeled as formal games.  For good overviews of this topic, see the book "Argumentation in Artificial Intelligence" or the special issue on argumentation of the Artificial Intelligence Journal, edited by Trevor Bench-Capon and Paul Dunne.

The ambition of the IMPACT project is to develop an argumentation toolbox which builds upon all three of these strains of research, to realize a state-of-the-art argumentation toolbox for supporting policy deliberations on the Web.

Bench-Capon, T.J.M. and Dunne, P.E. Argumentation in Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence 171, 10-15 (2007), 619-641.

Buckingham-Shum, S. Cohere: Towards Web 2.0 argumentation. Computational Models of Argument – Proceedings of COMMA 2008, (2008), 97-108.

Conklin, J. and Begeman, M.L. glBIS : A Hypertext Tool for Exploratory Policy Discussion. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 6, 4 (1988), 303-331.

Gordon, T.F. and Richter, G. Discourse Support Systems for Deliberative Democracy; eGovernment: State of the Art and Perspectives (EGOV02), Springer Verlag (2002), 248-255.

Kirschner, P.A., Buckingham-Shum, S.J., and Carr, C.S., eds. Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative Education and Sense-Making. Springer-Verlag, London, 2003.

Macintosh, A., Gordon, T.F., and Renton, A. Providing Argument Support for E-Participation. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 6, 1 (2009), 43-59.

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As some participants have asked how this platform works, here are some answers on questions that might come up when you are using this platform. Please do not hesitate to ask the networks facilitator if some issues remain unclear!

Q: How can I post something on the network's blog or mailing list?

A: There are two ways to post something to all members of the network:

- by e-mailing to policy-argumentation@posterous.com. This is perhaps the most convenient way, it works like a mailing list.

- by visiting the network's web site http://policy-argumentation.posterous.com.
In this case, you have to create an account or log into your account in case you already have one. To create an account, you need to enter your e-mail address (the one where you received the network's e-mails) and to create your own user name and password. In the next step, you can visit the network's web site and post something on the blog. To log in to the site, klick on the "login" link in the upper right corner of the site.

Please note that only registered members of the Policy Argumentation Network are able to post something!

Q: I have set up an account on Posterous, but I cannot post from this account!

A: This might happen when Posterous is not able to match your account with your membership in the network. Please send a mail to Steffen Albrecht and he can register your Posterous account with the Policy Argumentation Network.

Q: How can I comment on a post?

A: You can simply reply to the e-mail notifying you of the post (make sure that you preserve the line "reply above this line..." in your reply). Or you log in to the web site and post your comment there.

Q: How can I provide information about myself?

A: All members are invited to provide some information on their background, their interests in the topic, their expectations etc. You can do this either by commenting on this post or by setting up a profile on Posterous. To set up your profile, click on the "Home" link in the upper right corner of the web site and you will be able to click on "Edit Profile" on the next page, the so-called "Posterous Spaces". Here, you can also change your notification settings and create your own Posterous blog.

Q: Why are some names listed on the web site as "contributors"?

A: All registered members of the network are "contributors" in the sense that they can post information and comments. However, only persons who have already posted something or who have set up a profile are listed on the starting page of the network's web site in the right-hand column under "Contributors". A list of all members is available for the members of the network.

Q: How is the network connected with Twitter and LinkedIn?

A: The network's Twitter account is used to disseminate information beyond the scope of the network. It is an additional channel to reach out to people interested in computer-supported policy argumentation, and it is used to send short messages not fitting into the blog.

The group on LinkedIn was established to make participation in the network more convenient for those who are active users of LinkedIn. All posts from the network are available via RSS in the group, and you can connect with other members on an individual basis and discuss with them about the issues posted on the network. 

Q: I know someone else who is interested in computer-supported policy argumentation? Can I invite her / him to the network?

A: Yes, we are grateful for anyone who can enrich this network with her or his experiences. Please send an e-mail to the facilitator of the network, Steffen Albrecht, to send out an invitation.

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This post is to provide some background on the context of policy argumentation - what are the situations in which policy analysts might seek support, and how could such support be provided? In the IMPACT project, we have chosen Green Papers and the subsequent consultations as starting point for discussing the design and impact of tools to support policy argumentation. The consultation on the European Commission’s Green Paper on “Copyright in the Knowledge Economy” is described here briefly and may serve as a common reference for our discussion.

Background

With its “Interactive Policy Making” initiative started in 2001, the European Commission has adopted a systematic approach to consulting interested parties in the process of policy making. Often, these consultations are based upon Green Papers outlining the current state of affairs, the goals to be reached by the new legislation, and some policy alternatives.

The Green Paper “Copyright in the Knowledge Economy” was formulated in 2008 in the context of the EU’s attempt to modernise and harmonise copyright legislation. It’s aim was to stimulate debate on a specific aspect of the implementation of copyright laws in the Member States, namely the lack of harmonisation of the exceptions and limitations to copyright protection.

The consultation and its results

The consultation on the Green Paper was open from 16 July to 30 November 2008 and invited “all stakeholders” to comment on the questions submitted or “any other issues that are addressed or touched upon” in the Green Paper by e-mail. The consultation yielded over 370 responses from a wide variety of stakeholders.

Analysis of the responses vis-à-vis the Commission’s summary report reveals that in some cases, important nuances evident in the responses are eliminated in the summary provided by the Commission, and much fundamental criticism contained in stakeholders' contributions seems to be glossed over. Whereas the consultation allows stakeholders to make their voice heard, there is no way for them to engage in truly deliberative argumentation.

These observations are admittedly highly descriptive and non-representative. However, more thorough studies have shown similar results: Hüller (2008) finds in another case study that the EC’s summaries are biased towards the statements of well established actors, whereas individuals' and civil society actors' statements play only a marginal role and are rendered wrongly. Furthermore, the results are corrupted by not allowing for debate about controversial statements. Experts interviewed by Winkler and Kozeluh (2005) comment that a systematic methodology for interpretation and presentation of results would be necessary to use online consultations more effectively. Furthermore, Fazi and Smith (2006) note that concrete feedback, especially on why certain proposals were discarded, is crucially missing in the way EU consultations are conducted.

Discussion

It can be assumed that technical support would be valuable in order to improve consultations particularly with regard to three aspects:

• Firstly, with a view to the wide variety of responses in terms of form, style, substantive content, and argumentation, argumentation support systems would be valuable to make the most relevant differences explicit and readily recognisable.

• Secondly, assuming that the exclusion of certain arguments is mainly due to the practical necessities of condensing, structuring and aggregating the responses, providing policy makers with alternative – and more powerful – ways of achieving these accomplishments might be an important first step to bring the voices of individuals and civil society actors back into the policy making process.

• Finally, offering such tools not only to policy makers, but also to stakeholders engaging in consultations would allow for more interactive and deliberative communication between stakeholders and policy makers in the process of opinion formation.

Notes

Please note that a more detailed analysis of the case is included in our Requirements Analysis Report which is published on the project’s website (pp.19ff.). Data from this consultation (the content of the Green Paper and of the responses) is used for testing and demonstration of the tools developed in the IMPACT project.

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Welcome again! We have now finished the invitation process and are ready to start the Policy Argumentation Network.

The network currently has about 50 participants with diverse backgrounds in policy analysis, ranging from public administration and international organisations to business organisations, scientific institutions and e-participation facilitators. Together, we want to discuss how online software systems can be used to support the use of arguments in policy-making. We, the IMPACT partners as hosts of the network, will present work done in the IMPACT project, as well as by similar initiatives. We would like to hear from you about your experiences from day-to-day policy-making and policy-analysis and discuss what requirements emerge for software to support you in this practice. The aims of the network are thus twofold: to share information about computer-supported policy argumentation, and to link research and practice for mutual benefit.

You might view this network as a kind of online workshop: Some initial information is provided by the organisers, but the floor is open for everybody to contribute additional information, critical perspectives or issues that are relevant for the discussion. You can engage actively or sit back and listen, but sometimes we will explicitly call for contributions from all participants (see below!).

Our initial agenda for the rest of this year is as follows:

• We will start next week with an example of European policy making as a common reference: the consultation on the Green Paper on "Copyright in the Knowledge Economy" held by the EC in 2008.
• We will then present the work done in the IMPACT project in the areas of argument visualisation, policy modelling, structured consultation and argument reconstruction.
• We will ask for feedback on the requirements and design of software to support policy argumentation.
• We will show examples of tools and discuss their strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of policy practitioners.
• At the beginning of the next year, we are planning for a face-to-face meeting of network members.

But first of all, I would like to invite you to briefly introduce yourself and tell us something about your background and your expectations for this network. This would give all of us a better sense of this virtual community and the diversity of the participants. To do this, you can simply reply to this post, write a new post or you can use the profile provided by posterous. As my role is that of a facilitator, I tried to give an example here.

Furthermore, I would like to discuss the question of openness of the network. At the moment, all communication here is publicly visible, so that people interested in the topic can follow us. However, we might want to keep the interactions here more private. What is your opinion? Please tell me your view on this question - either as reply to this post or, if you prefer a more anonymous way, via e-mail.

Looking forward to your responses and comments!

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Organised by participants in the IMPACT Project

in conjunction with

The 24th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2011)

December 12 or 13 (TBA), 2011
Vienna, Austria

Context:

As the European Union develops, issues about governance, legitimacy, and transparency become more pressing. National governments and the EU Commission realise the need to promote widespread, deliberative democracy in the policy-making cycle, which has several phases: 1) agenda setting, 2) policy analysis, 3) lawmaking, 4) administration and implementation, and 5) monitoring. As governments must become more efficient and effective with the resources available, modern information and communications technology (ICT) are being drawn on to address problems of information processing in the phases. One of the key problems is policy content analysis and modelling, particularly the gap between on the one hand policy proposals and formulations that are expressed in quantitative and narrative forms and on the other hand formal models that can be used to systematically represent and reason with the information contained in the proposals and formulations.

Submission Focus:

The workshop invites submissions of original research about the application of ICT to the early phases of the policy cycle, namely those before the legislators fix the legislation: agenda setting, policy analysis, and lawmaking. The research should seek to address the gap noted above. The workshop focuses particularly on using and integrating a range of subcomponents – information extraction, text processing, representation, modelling, simulation, reasoning, and argument – to provide policy making tools to the public and public administrators.

Intended Audience:

Legal professionals, government administrators, political scientists, and computer scientists.

Areas of Interest:

• information extraction from natural language text
• policy ontologies
• formal logical representations of policies
• transformations from policy language to executable policy rules
• argumentation about policy proposals
• web-based tools that support participatory policy-making
• tools for increasing public understanding of arguments behind policy decisions
• visualising policies and arguments about policies
• computational models of policies and arguments about policies
• integration tools
• multi-agent policy simulations

For details please go to:

http://wyner.info/LanguageLogicLawSoftware/?p=1157

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There is widespread belief that the Internet and other digital technologies have the potential to broaden and deepen the democratic process, making it more transparent, inclusive and accessible and, as such, we are seeing the emergence of participative democracy across Europe. These technological developments are giving policy makers the potential to listen to citizens as they have not been able to do before.

In recent years, software tools to support the use of arguments have been transferred from their origin in training, business and legal reasoning to the policy domain. Tools to formulate, analyze and visualise arguments have great potential especially in policy debates, where they help organizers as well as participants to gain a better picture of the state of the debate and make their views heard more effectively. However, it is still a matter of research how best to use the power of such tools in actual policy practice.

The Policy Argumentation Network pursues two objectives. Firstly, to make accessible the state of the art of computer-supported argumentation in policy-making by connecting experts from the domains of policy-making, argumentation theory and argument visualisation, secondly, to enable discussion and participation in the design of our new tools to support the use of arguments in policy-making.

We welcome you as part of this network and invite you to share your expertise and experience!

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Welcome to the start of the Policy Argumentation Network! Whether you're a policy analyst, a facilitator, a lobbyist or just someone interested in policy-making - we hope we can provide insights from computer-supported argumentation and stimulate a debate about how it can be applied in the policy-making domain.

The Policy Argumentation Network was initiated by the IMPACT project. The network is part of the project's activities to strengthen the link between argumentation researchers and practitioners of policy analysis and policy-making. As a member of the network, you will learn about current developments in computer-supported argumentation and you will be able to share your experiences and discuss your expectations of computer-supported argumentation. Occasionally, we will ask you to evaluate and discuss questions of software development and the impact on the political process.

This website on Posterous is the virtual home of the network. Members can post information (via the web or just an e-mail message) and discuss statements from other members. News, background information, reports from personal experience as well as opinions are welcome contributions. Please keep in mind that this website is open to the public (read-only) to allow newcomers to get to know the network.

The network's activities will spread out to other online social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn, but also to real-world activities like workshops. The network will initially run until the end of 2012, when the IMPACT project terminates, but once a community of practice is formed, we will together work out how to keep it alive independently.

We hope you will enjoy being part of the community and we look forward to your comments!

For the partners in the IMPACT project,
Steffen Albrecht (facilitator)

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